


i never promised you a rose garden

by MariaCaterina



Series: i never promised you a rose garden [1]
Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bickering, Crime Fighting, F/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:19:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4002145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MariaCaterina/pseuds/MariaCaterina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So it's a good thing neither of you were expecting one. </p><p>Or, you finally bring up the elephant in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i never promised you a rose garden

**Author's Note:**

> JFC, I need an intervention.

Matt's lying supine on the couch absorbed in a thick text on New York statutory law and dictating notes into his phone, but he senses you drifting through the apartment. When you enter the room he feels the air and dust swirl around you.

Now the soft sound of your heartbeat, like a hammer wrapped in velvet, is right in front of him. Without a word you lightly tug the book away from him, conscientiously marking his place before you shut it. Matt's eyes are blank but he tilts his chin to follow your movements. Then, facing Matt, you put your hands on his shoulders and settle in his lap, one knee pressed against the outside of each of his thighs. Without a thought his arms come up to your waist, steadying you.

"...you have my attention," he says wryly as you brush the curve of his cheekbone with the tip of your nose, laughing softy. He can feel everything, from the warm caress of your exhales to the faint sensation of your eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.

"You work too hard."

"I have court in the morning."

"I bet you know that book back to front."

He doesn't contradict you. You smile, pressing yourself closer until your lips are only a fraction of an inch away. "I could make you forget," you say, slyly, so quietly that if he were anyone other than who he is, he would never have caught it.

"I doubt it. I have an excellent memory," he tells you, trying for lofty, but he's smiling too much. You kiss him, finally, and quite gently, then again, and again. When you draw back, he leans forward automatically, chasing your mouth. He can't stop the soft noise he makes, hands tightening around your waist. Matt wonders, a little despairingly, and not for the first time, where you learned to kiss so well. He's thought about asking, but never actually has; thinking of you kissing someone else leaves him testy and brooding.

One of your hands slides down from his shoulder to tilt his chin up, then skims down his throat and fists lightly in his tie. Matt feels a pleasant shiver roll down his spine, and then your mouth at his collar, curving into a smirk. He feels vaguely guilty, like wherever she is now, his grandmother is shaking her head in disappointment as a host of very un-chaste thoughts about you rise to the forefront of his mind.

And in the very suit he'd worn to Mass this morning.

(Every Sunday, he still asks you if you'd like to come with him. "Oh, Matt," you'd said this morning, laughing. "Still trying to save my soul?")

When at last your kiss deepens, he allows himself to indulge fully in your scent. The first layer he detects is always your perfume, a golden, hazy fragrance that you've so far refused to name.

("It's a mystery," you always say. "Figure it out, Columbia.")

So far he's detected saffron and jasmine and pear, but has had no luck identifying the perfume as of now. One of these days he'll have to go to a professional perfumery, he thinks. He'll find out that name even if he has to test every bottle of scent in the state of New York.

(He can tell from the quality of the scent that it was expensive. When he asks you, who live in an apartment held together by duct tape and prayers, with ancient, cantankerous pipes and a kitchen that's got peeling linoleum tiles, where you got it, you only say, lightly, carelessly, "Oh, it was a gift from someone."

 _Someone_ , he says back, rolling the word around his mouth like bitter fruit. _Someone_.)

You have a peculiar talent for misdirection, for creating smoke screens through omissions and vague truths that cannot be properly called deception, but nor can they be called honesty. Matt privately finds this maddening in a way he can't easily classify as negative or positive.

(Someone handsome? He thinks. Someone whole, in body and mind? Someone less dangerous to be with, someone easier to love? Matt never shares these thoughts with you, but nor can he stifle them entirely.)

Your mouth tastes first of tea (black, with milk and the tiniest trace of sugar), which is unsurprising; you buy English Breakfast in bulk and keep a tall kettle of water resting on a hot plate almost around the clock. Underneath that is the bolder, more aggressive taste of your morning coffee, the chill of the particular brand of mint gum you favor.

("It sounds horrible," you say aghast. "You mean to tell me you can taste everything I've eaten?"

"Well, to a point." He's amused by your abject horror. "Not everything. Depends on how strong it was, how much of it, how long ago you ate it--"

"So if, like, I went out with friends for sushi? And then came home and brushed my teeth? And then kissed you the next day?"

"Well, yeah."

You cover your face and moan. "This is the most embarrassing moment of my whole life."

He pays you shoulder soothingly. "It's not as bad as it sounds. I like sushi."

"Please stop," you sputter, torn between laughing and gagging. "You're making it worse.")

There's something else there, very faint, but definitely still present, a bitter chemical taste. It's familiar to Matt, but at the same time he's quite sure he's never tasted it on you before. Curiosity piqued, he grips the back of your neck and kisses you more, chasing the mystery flavor.

You, still kneeling over his lap, grip his shirt more tightly, shift to counter Matt's advances. You're not used to having the advantage of height, but it's quite nice. A moment later Matt yanks away from you so fast it leaves your lips tingling. You look down, surprised and uncertain. "Matt?"

Matt doesn't answer. Instead he grabs your shoulder and pulls you down so he can bury his nose in the hollow behind your ear, where he honest-to-God sniffs you. At first he catches only the smell of soap and vanilla body lotion, but underneath that is something familiar.

"Were you smoking?" He asks incredulously.

"Um." You say intelligently, which is answer enough.

"Jesus Christ," he sputters.

You push yourself off his lap, as clearly the moment is gone. "Really? Are we really doing this? It's not like it's a huge deal. I have a cigarette once or twice a week. It's not like I'm shooting up."

"It's _exactly_ like that. Why the hell didn't I know about this?"

"God, I didn't think it was that important! You're acting like I gave you herpes. Calm down!"

Matt stands up, grinding his teeth. "You know cigarettes kill people, right?"

Both of your voices have been gradually increasing in volume. You drop yours, saying quietly, but no less venomously, "And dicking around with the Mafia, the Yakuza, and the Triads all at once is conducive to long and happy life? Double standard much? Fuck!"

"That's different! I trained. For years. I'm helping people."

"I'm helping _myself_ stay sane _here_ , while you're out _there_ , scaling rooftops and getting knifed! Look, I'm romantically linked to a guy who runs around beating up criminals in his spare time. If I live long enough to die of cancer, I'll consider myself a lucky lady."

The expression on Matt's face is enough to make you realize immediately that you've made a huge misstep: it looks the same as it did the one and only time you stitched his wounds after a patrol, which is to say, pained. That night he'd ended up holding your hair out of your face while you vomited, then tucking you into bed with a cup of hot, sweet tea while you apologized over and over.

Tonight you're angry and defensive, and you snap, "Oh, it's not like we weren't both thinking it."

But you're wrong. In fact, Matt has been studiously _not_ thinking it since the moment he realized he wanted you. It's the only thing that's allowed him to be with you.

He silently walks out of his apartment.

You sit on the couch and try to process what the fuck just happened. When, hours later, he still hasn't come home, you leave too.

*

Matt's especially vicious on patrol that night, unluckily for the perpetrators he intercepts. His anger at himself mounts. This is supposed to be a public service, not his emotional outlet. He should be objective. Lashing out because he's frustrated and angry in his personal life is unacceptable.

Peter, who has some sense of self-preservation, says nothing, although Matt can practically feel the curiosity radiating from him.

Wade, on the other hand, yells, "Fuckin' A, DD, what's with you? Problems with the Missus? You can tell us. This is a safe space."

Matt doesn't know what expression is on his face, but Peter crashes into Wade in his hurry to shut him up.

When he returns to his apartment, you're gone, as he'd known you would be, and can't decide whether he's sorry or glad.

*

You don't talk for three days.

*

The next time you see him it's late, getting on towards five in the morning. The chronic insomnia that has plagued you since childhood has flared again, so you're lying listlessly on the floor trying to summon up the will to tidy your living space. You'd turned on the television to keep you company, so at first you don't hear the tap on your window over the comforting noise of the infomercial for a fancy set of knives. He knocks more firmly, and you sit up suddenly.

You, stupidly relieved, throw the window open for him, letting the brisk chill of Hell's Kitchen invade your apartment for a moment. Matt's dressed not in his Daredevil armor but the black paramilitary gear he wore before. You're glad of it, because Matt Murdock is the only man you feel like seeing tonight.

Neither of you knows quite what to say, so he just sits at the kitchen table while you prepare two cups of coffee. The familiar sounds of you moving about the kitchen as you retrieve milk and sugar substitute are as soothing as the drip-drip of your percolator. The reviving scent of coffee soon billows gently around him. He inhales slowly through his nose, curiously, gratefully accepting the cup you fold his hands around, even though you know it's unnecessary to do so. It tastes different; strong, rich, and sweet with an edge of bitterness like quality dark chocolate. Matt savors the smooth, silky finish of his sip while he sits silently, trying to make sense of the difference.

This is good coffee, the kind meant to be enjoyed in tiny cups after an luxuriant meal, not the kind that busy working women hurriedly chug, standing at the kitchen counter. Your usual brew is strongly bitter and bitterly strong, the unpleasant taste poorly masked by the sick chemical sweetness of some sugar substitute.

("Hey, it gets the job done," you tell him, laughing when he complains about your horrible coffee.)

This cup has been delicately enhanced by what Matt's tongue tells him with certainty is real sugar. "This's really good," he says after a time. "Different coffee?"

"Um, yeah. I was at one of those specialty foods stores the other day and I ground the beans myself. Why not?"

Except he knows you well enough to sense the not-quite untruthfulness of your words; you've never minded the huge containers of stale grounds that you pick up for next to nothing at the local grocery store. The freshly-ground beans and real sugar are your way of pampering his enhanced senses, and he melts a little at the quiet kindness inherent to your actions.

Over the sound of your silence, the television set extolls the virtues of a revolutionary strength-training regimen. You worry the edge of your thumbnail with your teeth. Finally he says, "If I were a good person, I'd leave right now."

You slam down your coffee cup. "What the fuck, Matthew. No, don't answer that," you add snappishly when he opens his mouth. "It wasn't a question."

"What? We can't ignore the elephant in the room forever."

"Wanna bet?"

"I won't let you." He fidgets with the mug, spinning it, running the tip of his index finger around the edge. "You were right, before. This isn't safe for you."

"It's not safe for _you_ , you ass. I really am not seeing any difference."

"I made the decision to engage with Fisk."

"You say that like someone coerced me into--this," you say with a fractional pause. "Believe me, I'm all aware of the risk I'm taking. Maybe I decided it was worth it, the way you did when you chose to put that damn mask on."

"But that doesn't matter!" He's frustrated, gesticulating impatiently. "If something happened to you because of me, I--" His voice drops away, and he presses his hands flat to the tabletop.

"The same could be said of anyone in your life," you point out, as calmly as you can. You don't want to fight him anymore, but you also know that you can't back down on this point. "If that's the case, then you may as well go live as a hermit in the sewer, which would kind of the defeat the purpose of being a superhero. People don't fight wars because they love their country, people fight wars because their country contains the people they love. If you don't have anyone to fight for, why would you bother?"

He smiles a little at you. "That's taking a very dim view of human nature. Maybe some of us are altruists."

"There's no such thing as an altruist, Mattie. Just people who get personal fulfillment from feeling like a martyr." You glower at him meaningfully, not that he notices.

For almost a quarter of an hour you sit in silence, before you collect the empty coffee cups and rinse them out in the sink. You lean with one hip on the counter, staring out the window at the city below. Flashing blue and red lights down in the street coast by. Matt follows you to the window, one arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you flat against him. He rests his chin comfortably on the top of your head and he feels rather than hears you sigh. A moment later you twist away from him long enough to guide his other hand under your t-shirt to the naked small of you back. He lightly traces the edge of the nicotine patch pasted there, then says with a sincerity that makes you blush, " _Thank you_."

Trying to distract him from the telling skip of your heartbeat, you spin in his arms and, cradling his face in your hands, pull it down so you can kiss him. From the noises he makes, you suspect you're being thoroughly distracting.

Matt indulges you for a time, but all too soon he pulls away, shaking his head as of to clear it, you note smugly. "I'm pretty sure we were having a conversation just now."

Damn, you think wryly. He does have excellent focus. "Are you sure?" You ask him seriously, and nuzzle his lower lip. "Doesn't ring a bell to me."

"A very--important conversation," he gasps between kisses, "Regarding not getting you killed?" Matt takes a shivery breath when you press your breasts against his chest, and he sighs your name. "You can't solve everything with sex, you know." Despite these words, his hands have risen to frame your waist and he can hear a ragged note in his own breathing.

"Well, we'll never know if we don't try," you say, toying with the hem of his shirt.

He captures your hands.

"You're making it very difficult to seduce you," you complain.

"I, um. Got something for you." He says it like he's admitting to a crime. You raise your eyebrows, though the gesture is lost on Matt.

"What'd you do, Murdock?" You ask him suspiciously. "Spill." The small revolver he shows you, tucked into an unassuming brown box leaves you speechless. "Matt." You say finally, then stop, rubbing your forehead.

"I'd like you to learn," he says in a rush, scraping the floor with the toe of one shoe. "Please. I would feel--better."

"If I say I'll think about it... Can we move on to the part where I get to sex you up?"

Matt sighs theatrically, allowing you to pull him towards your bedroom. "Work, work, work," he says, laughing.

*

Afterwards you lie with your back curled against Matt's side. Soon your breathing calms and your heartbeat slows and he knows you've begun to doze. He in turn allows himself to drift lightly, comforting himself in the familiar sound of your biorhythms which help him to tune out the noise exuding from the city. When dawn is starting to break, turning the sky a pearly gray, you're both roused by a heavy weight landing on the edge of the bed. A warm, whiskery face sniffs interestedly at Matt's ear with a questioning _mrrt_?

"Oh my goodness," you say, voice jumping at least an octave. "Good morning, baby. How's my Pretty Boy today?" When you start to sit up, Matt's arm tightens, reeling you closer to him. You roll, pressing your naked form against his, shivering, until the cat starts to knead pointedly at Matt's chest.

"Ugh," he tells it. "You ruin everything. I was here first." Pretty Boy bumps his head affectionately against the side of Matt's face. "Getting a kinda chunky, isn't he?" Matt asks you, petting the cat. "Feels like he's got some junk in the trunk," he teases.

You gather the cat to your chest and slither out of bed, cooing. "Don't listen to him, bunny, he's just jealous. You know you're the only man I'll ever love."

*

Outside the apartment, Hell's Kitchen begins to rouse itself.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering, the perfume you're supposed to be wearing is Idole d'Armani.


End file.
